Date

The debate was held on Tuesday, February 15, 2000 at 1900 UTC.

Where

irc.debian.org on channel #debian-debate

Format

24 hours before the debate each of the candidates emailed their
opening speech to the debate organizer, Jason Gunthorpe. They
were then placed on this page. Everything was added at
the same time to ensure fairness.

The actual debate has two parts. First, a strongly moderated traditional
debate:

The moderator asks a candidate a question. The candidate
then has a reasonable period to respond.

After the response each of the other candidates responds in turn.

The first candidate gets to make closing remarks on the question.

The order of the candidates is rotated for each question.

The second part of the debate is more freestyle. Questions submitted
by the audience and developers are asked. Each candidate gets a
short period to respond.

Candidate Positions

The candidates are listed in the order of the nominations. In most cases there
is no clear division between the announcement and the platform statement
so they are simply given as a numbered list.